Musician Mark Korven and luthier Tony Duggan-Smith talked to Great Big Story about how the “Apprehension Engine” came to be. Korven, who scores films, conceived the idea of an discordant instrument that could be used to convey bone-chilling terror and asked Duggan-Smith to build it for him.
So, Mark called me asking me to create a crazy instrument for horror films. Because I’d never done anything like that before, it made me empty out all my pockets and all my drawers of any knick-knacks and bits of bobs I could possibly string together to make it happen for him.And this is what came of it.
The result was extremely successful.
The Apprehension Engine was an instrument that creates a variety of really creepy and some would say horrifying sounds… You’re dealing with things that stir primal emotions and feelings. …It expresses what really can’t be expressed any other way. It’s not music in the traditional sense, at all. But, let me put this way. The Apprehension Engine definitely evokes an emotion, so I would call it music.
